Hasan, Radical Cleric Had Contact

Communications With Former Imam at Virginia Mosque Didn't Raise Red Flags to U.S. Authorities

By

Evan Perez and

Keith Johnson

Updated Nov. 10, 2009 12:01 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON -- Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 at the Fort Hood, Texas, Army base, communicated 10 to 20 times with a radical Islamic cleric in Yemen who on Monday called Maj. Hasan a "hero" and criticized U.S. Muslim groups that condemned the killing spree.

ENLARGE

The Virginia mosque attended by shooting suspect Nidal Hasan. A now-radical Islamic cleric was once the imam there.
Getty Images

Federal officials said Monday that terrorism investigators conducted a summary look into the contacts that began last year and continued into this year between Maj. Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki. Mr. Awlaki was once the imam, or spiritual leader, at a Virginia mosque frequented by Maj. Hasan and his family.

The communications between the men appeared related to Maj. Hasan's work at Walter Reed Medical Center and his pursuit of a master's degree and didn't raise any red flags with U.S. law enforcement or result in any follow-up action, according to federal investigators, who declined to be named.

The content of the messages appeared social: Maj. Hasan sought religious guidance in some cases, a senior investigator said. U.S. authorities detected the communications during ongoing intelligence collection.

The investigators from two joint terrorism task forces, which are led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, contacted military officials who provided information about Maj. Hasan, one official said. The communications between Maj. Hasan and Mr. Awlaki continued until about six months ago, another federal official said.

Months later, when Maj. Hasan purchased the semiautomatic handgun investigators allege he used in his attack, he underwent a routine FBI background check. But the fact he had briefly surfaced in a terrorism probe wouldn't have become part of the background check and the FBI didn't have legal means to bar him from buying the gun, another federal official said.

The revelations are bound to raise questions about who in the U.S. government knew what and when about Maj. Hasan and whether signals of the radicalization of a soldier about to be deployed to Afghanistan were missed. Officials from the FBI, Defense Department, and National Counterterrorism Center on Monday conducted briefings for lawmakers on Capitol Hill, where some are already announcing plans for their own investigation. FBI Director Robert Mueller ordered a review of his investigators' handling of the matter, officials said.

The Scene at Ft. Hood

Investigators had no indication Maj. Hasan "as planning any attack," a senior federal investigator said Monday. Despite the contacts, the Fort Hood attack isn't classified as an act of terrorism, the official said. In part because of that, Defense and Justice department officials decided Monday that Maj. Hasan will be charged in military rather than civilian court.

"We don't have any indication he was directed. We don't have any indication he had co-conspirators," the senior investigator said.

Separately, hospital officials at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio said that Maj. Hasan has been awake and talking since Saturday, when his ventilator was removed. Army investigators leading the Fort Hood probe tried to interview him Sunday but he invoked his right to an attorney, officials said.

The probe in which Maj. Hasan surfaced wasn't directed at him, and FBI officials never opened even a preliminary investigation into him, investigators said Monday. U.S. intelligence agencies and the FBI are known to do extensive monitoring of suspected extremists, sweeping up data on their communications, particularly any contacts between suspected extremists overseas and people inside the U.S.

The FBI relies on intelligence agencies to collect data on its behalf. But the volume of information is so large that intelligence analysts don't review it all unless there are multiple flags that raise suspicion. Mr. Awlaki has drawn the interest of law-enforcement officials in several terrorism investigations since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, a person familiar with the matter said.

Mr. Awlaki knew three of the hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 attacks and left the U.S. to eventually settle in Yemen in 2002. He wrote on his Web site Monday: "Nidal Hassan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people...How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done?"

The 13 Fatalities of the Fort Hood Shooting

Mr. Awlaki was the imam at the Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., in 2001 and 2002. Maj. Hasan occasionally prayed there, and his mother's funeral was held there in May 2001.

On Monday, the Dar Al Hijrah mosque condemned the statement of its former imam. "We openly denounce the statement of Mr. Awlaki as posted on his website. ... Mr. Awlaki now claims that the American Muslims who have condemned the violent acts of Major Hasan have committed treason against the Muslim Umaah (community) and have fallen into hypocrisy. With this reversal, Mr. Awlaki has clearly set himself apart from Muslims in America."

Johari Abdul-Malik, an imam and the director of outreach at the mosque, said that while Mr. Awlaki was imam, his lectures were "mainstream," in contrast to his recent comments on Maj. Hasan. "I don't think we read him wrong," Mr. Abdul-Malik said, referring to Mr. Awlaki. "I think something happened to him."

Investigators are scouring Maj. Hasan's computer and multiple email accounts for signs that he had contact with radical Islamist elements before his shooting spree. As part of their probe, authorities continue to look at a May 2009 Internet posting by one "NidalHasan" praising suicide bombers and believe Maj. Hasan is likely responsible.

Mass Shootings in the U.S.

It is unclear whether Maj. Hasan ever met Mr. Awlaki. Prayer services at Dar Al Hijrah regularly draw as many as 3,000 people on Fridays. Mr. Awlaki's tenure at Dar Al Hijrah was marked by controversy. Even before joining the mosque, the New Mexico native had been investigated by the FBI in the late 1990s for alleged contacts with al Qaeda couriers, including one linked to the man responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He has never been indicted in the U.S.

While running a mosque in San Diego in 2000, he met two future Sept. 11 hijackers. One of those men, plus a third future hijacker, appeared at the Virginia mosque shortly after Mr. Awlaki became imam, looking for an apartment, according to the 9/11 Commission report. In late 2002 on a trip back to the U.S., Mr. Awlaki visited Ali-al Timimi, a Muslim leader who U.S. prosecutors said was recruiting local Muslims to fight against U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Mr. Timimi was convicted in 2005. When Mr. Awlaki left the U.S. in 2002, he first settled in Britain, and later in Yemen, his parents' native country. He was detained in Yemen from mid-2006 to late 2007, apparently at the request of U.S. authorities.

After his release, he gave a lecture there entitled "Battle of the Hearts and Minds," in which he decried U.S. government efforts to promote moderate Islam as a means of defusing extremist violence. Attacking the emphasis given to democracy, secular law, minority rights and nonviolence in the U.S. approach, Mr. Awlaki noted mockingly: "And the moderate Muslim is a Muslim, who invites the U.S. army to come and invade his land, and is happy to follow man-made laws and is a person who has no honor and dignity to defend himself against aggression. This is a moderate Muslim!"

In Texas, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, Fort Hood's commanding officer, said 15 soldiers remained hospitalized Monday, eight of them in critical condition.

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